Lyons: Compassion for the homeless, but not a free pass

Published: Saturday, November 23, 2013 at 4:27 p.m.

Last Modified: Saturday, November 23, 2013 at 4:27 p.m.

Though I dislike the way it is often said, there’s no denying a potential truth in the analogy often used by people opposed to freebies for homeless people.

Especially for the chronic hard-core loiterers with no apparent ambition to do anything better, they mean. Bums, if you prefer.

“Don’t feed the bears or you’ll soon have more bears,” is one way it has been said.

It can sound mean. Other times, those saying so just sound resigned or worried.

I usually say bears and people are both best off when bears stay in the woods, but that homeless people, whatever the reasons for their condition, can’t literally wander the forest even if they have one to roam in. Humans — even dysfunctional ones you may prefer to avoid — need human contact, help, and social interactions. Otherwise, they just get worse.

Still, rewarding problematic behavior like chronic downtown loitering by giving food to sidewalk dwellers and handing money to panhandlers really does encourage more of the same publicly displayed sloth. As with putting food out for feral cats, the result can be more hanging around.

Vallerie Guillory — the nice North Sarasota woman known for trying to set up a controversial campground-style haven for homeless people just north of Sarasota’s Gillespie Park — admits it took her a while to catch on to that.

Since she was once homeless and an addict, she had first thought she knew what was needed when she became a do-gooder. She was good at being non-judgmental, non-bureaucratic and at treating homeless people like people. She cared. And I liked her right away when I saw, months ago, her manner of talking and being nice to needy people sitting on a sidewalk as other people crossed the street to avoid them.

She’s still just as nice and just as determined to help. But she says handing out food and water the way she used to was a mistake.

“I wasn’t helping. I was enabling them,” she just told me.

The same could have happened at that camp she envisioned, she told me, had she not learned a few things from Robert Marbut, the homelessness consultant advising Sarasota on how to help and make things better instead of worse.

She’s a big Marbut fan now. He believes help must be done in a way that rewards improved behavior, but without setting the entry bar too high. If getting a place to sleep and a meal requires too much too fast, many troubled and homeless people will go right back to the sidewalk, as with many who now wash out of strict and demanding Salvation Army programs.

But expect nothing in return for food and shelter and nothing is what you get. That’s no good, either.

Guillory says Marbut’s suggested facilities, if they come to be, may make her homeless camp plan unnecessary. But she’s making plans to help fill whatever gaps may remain. She wants to focus on helping homeless women, especially mothers, who need a more secure place than some men do to start getting back on their feet.

Though she wouldn’t overdo it, she envisions a place with a little bureaucracy, some rules, and caseworkers who assess needs and set goals. The place can’t be a flophouse supporting lives of leisure, however meager.

“I learned from Marbut,” she said, that just being nice and giving handouts can backfire.

She hopes other people learn from Marbut, too, including those who fear help for the homeless has to mean more idlers loitering around the sidewalks awaiting the next feeding.

If that was Marbut’s track record, she said, no one would be hiring him or listening to him.

<p>Though I dislike the way it is often said, there's no denying a potential truth in the analogy often used by people opposed to freebies for homeless people.</p><p>Especially for the chronic hard-core loiterers with no apparent ambition to do anything better, they mean. Bums, if you prefer.</p><p>“Don't feed the bears or you'll soon have more bears,” is one way it has been said.</p><p>It can sound mean. Other times, those saying so just sound resigned or worried.</p><p>I usually say bears and people are both best off when bears stay in the woods, but that homeless people, whatever the reasons for their condition, can't literally wander the forest even if they have one to roam in. Humans — even dysfunctional ones you may prefer to avoid — need human contact, help, and social interactions. Otherwise, they just get worse.</p><p>Still, rewarding problematic behavior like chronic downtown loitering by giving food to sidewalk dwellers and handing money to panhandlers really does encourage more of the same publicly displayed sloth. As with putting food out for feral cats, the result can be more hanging around.</p><p>Vallerie Guillory — the nice North Sarasota woman known for trying to set up a controversial campground-style haven for homeless people just north of Sarasota's Gillespie Park — admits it took her a while to catch on to that.</p><p>Since she was once homeless and an addict, she had first thought she knew what was needed when she became a do-gooder. She was good at being non-judgmental, non-bureaucratic and at treating homeless people like people. She cared. And I liked her right away when I saw, months ago, her manner of talking and being nice to needy people sitting on a sidewalk as other people crossed the street to avoid them.</p><p>She's still just as nice and just as determined to help. But she says handing out food and water the way she used to was a mistake.</p><p>“I wasn't helping. I was enabling them,” she just told me.</p><p>The same could have happened at that camp she envisioned, she told me, had she not learned a few things from Robert Marbut, the homelessness consultant advising Sarasota on how to help and make things better instead of worse.</p><p>She's a big Marbut fan now. He believes help must be done in a way that rewards improved behavior, but without setting the entry bar too high. If getting a place to sleep and a meal requires too much too fast, many troubled and homeless people will go right back to the sidewalk, as with many who now wash out of strict and demanding Salvation Army programs.</p><p>But expect nothing in return for food and shelter and nothing is what you get. That's no good, either.</p><p>Guillory says Marbut's suggested facilities, if they come to be, may make her homeless camp plan unnecessary. But she's making plans to help fill whatever gaps may remain. She wants to focus on helping homeless women, especially mothers, who need a more secure place than some men do to start getting back on their feet.</p><p>Though she wouldn't overdo it, she envisions a place with a little bureaucracy, some rules, and caseworkers who assess needs and set goals. The place can't be a flophouse supporting lives of leisure, however meager.</p><p>“I learned from Marbut,” she said, that just being nice and giving handouts can backfire.</p><p>She hopes other people learn from Marbut, too, including those who fear help for the homeless has to mean more idlers loitering around the sidewalks awaiting the next feeding. </p><p>If that was Marbut's track record, she said, no one would be hiring him or listening to him.</p>